1. CERN les.robertson@cern.ch juin-00 La Politique du tout PC au CERN CUIC – Arcachon – 21-22 juin 2000 Les Robertson CERN/IT – Genève

2. CERN juin-00 - #2les robertson - cern/it Sommaire Le problème La stratégie Les difficultés

3. CERN les.robertson@cern.ch juin-00 Le problème

4. CERN juin-00 - #4les robertson - cern/it Architectures & operating systems supported at end 1999 AIX Windows NT Irix Solaris Digital Unix HP-UX MAC-OS Linux Windows 95 SPARC MIPS Intel IA-32 PA-RISC Power PC Alpha Windows 2000 The legacy of ten years of RISC computing

5. CERN juin-00 - #5les robertson - cern/it Combien darchitectures et systèmes dexploitation sont vraiment nécessaire? Combien coûte le support? Combien vaut la diversité? Comment imposer des limitations de choix dans un environnement de recherche scientifique ?

6. CERN - The European Organisation for Nuclear Research The European Laboratory for Particle Physics Fundamental research in particle physics Financed by 20 European countries 6,000 users (researchers) from all over the world LHC accelerator under construction Proton-proton collider 27 km of super-conducting magnets Target date for first beams - 2005 Four experiments 2000 physicists, 150 universities CERN

7. CMS detector - as big as a 6-storey office block, - costing ~FF 2.000M - 1 PetaByte of filtered data per year level 1 - special hardware 40 MHz (40 TB/sec) level 2 - embedded processors level 3 - PCs 75 KHz (75 GB/sec) 5 KHz (5 GB/sec) 100 Hz (100 MB/sec) data recording & offline analysis

8. The LHC Detectors CMS ATLAS LHCb 3.5 PetaBytes / year ~10 8 events/year

9. CERN juin-00 - #9les robertson - cern/it Performance or Throughput? High Throughput Computing mass of modest problems throughput rather than performance resilience rather than ultimate reliability Ten years of experience in exploiting inexpensive mass market components But we need to marry these with inexpensive highly scalable management tools Much in common with data mining, Internet computing facilities, ……

10. ~10K SI95 1200 processors Non-LHC technology-price curve (40% annual price improvement) LHC 10-20K cpus?

11. Non-LHC technology-price curve (40% annual price improvement) LHC

12. lmr for Monarc study- april 1999

13. LHC physics facility – 4 experiments 2 M SPECint95 10-20K processors 2 PByte disk >20 K disks

14. CERN juin-00 - #14les robertson - cern/it Summary of the problem HEP is using far too many operating systems in many cases with only slightly different functionality or hardware cost benefits and at a high cost for users and support teams The scale of LHC computing - massive numbers of processors/boxes integration of regional computing centres and CERN problem is how to manage on this scale while limiting costs of equipment, management & support We must reduce the diversity while retaining flexibility to use low-cost, mass market components and adapt rapidly to changing physics needs

15. CERN les.robertson@cern.ch juin-00 La stratégie

16. CERN juin-00 - #16les robertson - cern/it Opportunity PCs + { Linux ¦ Windows } offer an historic opportunity to reduce the solution set Costs and performance PCs will consistently be among the very best price/performers for HEP codes They may not be the fastest,but they are fast enough Linux -a non-proprietary operating system compatible with the recent Unix history Windows – a mass market alternative – widely used on the desktop

17. CERN juin-00 - #17les robertson - cern/it Policy Restrict ourselves to PC hardware with Linux or Windows 2000 Develop a migration plan - progressively freeze support for other Unixes, announcing end-dates which are reasonable for old experiments, strongly discourage further investments in RISC systems by current and future experiments install large Linux public facility, testbed for future experiments Concentrate investment in Linux and Windows bring support up to the standards of proprietary Unixes tackle the problems of scaling the management and performance of physics farms and desktops seek HEP-wide consensus

18. CERN juin-00 - #18les robertson - cern/it But do not be unrealistic ---- This is a convergence policy which looks realistic now and will provide a single starting point for LHC computing but we can be sure that the industry will not stand still, and we shall sooner or later have to expand the systems and architectures supported AIX WNT Irix Solaris Digital Unix HP-UX MAC-OS Linux Windows 95 SPARC MIPS Intel IA-32 PA-RISC Power PC Alpha Linux Windows 2000 Intel IA-64 - - - ?

19. CERN les.robertson@cern.ch juin-00 Les difficultés et l'état de la migration

20. CERN juin-00 - #20les robertson - cern/it Difficulties - I Physics – (almost) entirely Unix based Linux is not quite ready (Too) wide a choice of kernels, compilers Poor debugging Different versions supported by different applications Complex packages (Oracle, AFS) – better go with the standard platform Stability problems under load Who provides in-depth, on-site Linux systems support? Solution: Standard Linux Package certified for all CERN applications Solaris/SPARC for special purposes Open posts for Linux experts

21. CERN juin-00 - #21les robertson - cern/it Difficulties - II In a research environment Easy to estimate the costs of systems support Hard to estimate the cost of application migration The application experts have already moved on The developers have other (more interesting) problems to solve The problem is not only to port the code but (more important) to acquire confidence in the physics results Compiler, architecture, old bugs But there are signs that Linux+Intel are as good as any! In the past, the production use of multiple architectures was an important factor in finding bugs

22. CERN juin-00 - #22les robertson - cern/it Current Status – Physics For older experiments – Strong resistance to aggressive migration proposal Now aiming at complete freeze on all proprietary Unixes during 2003 For future experiments (not yet collecting data) – General agreement, but reserve position on alternative platform for validation For new experiments collecting data now Easy to calculate the benefits Have already completed migration

23. CERN juin-00 - #23les robertson - cern/it Current Status – other applications Engineering applications Aggressive migration plan to Windows NT/2000 & Linux, with some residual SUN Major exception is mechanical CAE (Euclid + Digital Unix) Administration Database (Oracle) on SUN Clients Web-based (Netscape) Strong pockets of MAC resistance – led by the Directorate

24. CERN juin-00 - #24les robertson - cern/it Conclusions Les besoins énormes du LHC exigent la standardisation et lutilisation des composants bon-marché Opportunité – Linux + Windows 2000 avec Intel IA32/64 & Ethernet Grande inertie (résistance?) de la part des « vielles » expériences - il faudra 4 années pour terminer la migration Mais – déjà plus de la moitié des systèmes installés et 75% de la capacité sont Linux/Intel